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Intelligence always has a place

Paulo RegoPaulo Rego*

The latest shout of artificial intelligence, launched without great fanfare, as a simple academic experiment, in less than three months has launched panic in the big technological sharks like Google.

The chatgpt is probably the most disruptive digital reality of modernity.

Read more about this subject: ChatGPT: the promises, pitfalls and panic

Because it is open to everyone; for the first time it allows a widespread perception of the quantum leap that is already underway: from search engines and algorithms, to the ability that a program can have to “think” and “create”.

Try asking anything, from the most naive banality, to the most complex challenge. Because there is always an answer, if only to explain why the question makes no sense or why the answer is blocked.

In fact, it is impressive.

It is one of those phenomena that, even if one doesn’t immediately perceive its true dimension and reach, one easily realizes that nothing will ever be as it was before. The machine doesn’t make decisions. It is not yet clear whether it is not capable of doing so; or whether it is blocked from doing so. As it is for many other functions that chatgpt doesn’t assume because its founders don’t want it to – not because it isn’t capable of doing so. What is easily realized, in the dynamics of the digital revolution, is that these and other barriers – ethical and otherwise – will sooner or later be broken down.

If not in the mass market, certainly by intelligence services, military technologies and other corporate or state interests.

Applications based on the same technology quickly emerged, allowing the most ordinary of mortals to create works of fiction, screenplays, digital characters with their own personalities, who blend in with flesh and blood actors… in two or three months, the debate on Artificial Intelligence changed radically. And the romantic idea that you can have a robot at home that talks to you, “thinks” autonomously, works for you, creates and communicates for you… went from being a silly fiction to become the great debate of modernity.

It seems to me that the scare never makes sense nor is it worth it.

We have been for 20 years somewhat paralyzed in thinking about genetic engineering; the dangers of manipulation or even the panic of cloning. The truth is that its application in agriculture can also kill global hunger; and its medical application can save many lives and prolong many others.

In this case the flame of debate burns similarly. It is indeed surprising to see chatgpt, in seconds, writing code for a computer game, sending a letter to the condominium manager, or preparing a procedural piece at a lawyer’s request…

You also see the limits of standardization and the idea that the machine will be used massively, creating mechanisms of massification and social control never before imagined.

It is all true. It’s really going to happen.

Read also: Artificial Intelligence brings back teen shot to death

You can’t stop the future, nor does it make sense to block all the potential it brings us. Nor is there any point in thinking that the digital revolution is rosy and will liberate man from his collective stupidity or from his labor slavery. That is not what we see happening.

What will happen to Macau? Chatgpt answers: we don’t know, because there are many variables that today are not guaranteed and that have to do mainly with China’s political and economic dynamics.

But there is an unavoidable movement of integration of Macau in China and an effort of economic diversification, namely in sectors such as finance and new technologies… which open positive perspectives for Macau’s future.

Let’s face it: the answer doesn’t embarrass anyone. It is not far from what a Macau citizen with higher education and some capacity for reflection would answer.

It is clearly far above the average of what four out of five respondents would answer in a street survey… And it is within the reach of everyone with access to the Internet.

In fact, every day you realize how fast everything changes… And this is a reality that Macao has to study, deepen, and invest human and financial resources in. Because these are the opportunity profiles that can transform a small city into a great platform for modernity. It would certainly be a very intelligent attitude – and not very artificial.

*General Director of PLATAFORMA

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